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The Ornamental Pond, behind Shibden Hall Halifax

Shibden Hall's Ornate entrance Gate

Shibden Hall & Park Anne Lister Diaries Halifax West Yorkshire UK

Just outside Halifax town centre sits the spectacular Shibden Hall and Park dating from 1420. Closely associated with the Lister family for around 300 years, particularly Anne Lister (1791-1840) and her famous covert diary, Shibden recently has been seeing some extensive repair work. It's not the first time the house has seen changes. Shibden has been added to and redesigned through the centuries, most famously when Anne Lister opened the house up to the roof and installed the ornate staircase and panelling more befitting of the Georgian Jacobethan style. Read more via the Shibden tour on Calderdale's Tourist webguide (link right). The house itself is full of oak panelled walls and some fine pieces of Yorkshire furniture most of which originates from Shibden. A highlight is the beautifully carved four poster dark wooden bed which dates from 1630 when the Listers first arrived here. Various events, including the Easter Eggstravaganza and May Day celebrations take place within the stunning park surrounding Shibden Hall. Feature facilities within the park include a boating lake, a pitch and putt and a miniature railway - all great for kids. There is also a cafe and lots of picnic space.

Shibden Hall, Lister's Road, Halifax, HX3 6XG. Tel. 01422 352246.

Anne Lister of Halifax (1791-1840)

Anne Lister's diaries and letters, thanks to dedicated researchers such as Helena Whitbread, Muriel Green, Phyllis Ramsden and Jill Liddington, offer an invaluable insight into not only her family, friendships, her business acumen, her political relationships and her lesbian affairs - they also document in incredible detail her running of the estate at Shibden.

You can now view some of the diaries online thanks to a recent Womens History online project.www.historytoherstory.org.uk and click on the women's lives section, and here you will find Anne Lister, plus many other details on women's lives and work in Yorkshire. Thanks to painstaking work by Jill Liddington and Helena Whitbread, you can view original pages of the diary in a split screen on the web, with the typed translation alongside it.

You can also view the original manuscripts at Halifax Central Library, Northgate, Halifax HX1 1UN.
Telephone. 01422 392630.

Finding out about Anne Lister at Shibden Hall Halifax

Anne Lister began her now famous diaries in 1806 when she was 15. By 1817 she was recording her life daily in her diaries, much of which was in secret code containing details of her lesbian relationships. She kept this diary, producing volumes of records, until her death in 1840 in Russia. She also wrote numerous letters which have also been preserved.

Anne was a social climber and educated herself in estate management, making sure that she was ready when she finally inherited Shibden Hall in Halifax in 1826. Anne had 'aristocratic ambitions', she travelled extensively, had a wide network of friends and managed her affairs, making money from leasing or selling land, and selling coal and stone. Anne's politics were 'high-Tory'. Although she had some sympathy for reformers in Halifax in the first half of the 19th century, she saw herself very much part of the landed gentry class, and spoke with distain of the 'new money' of the industrialists who were gaining power in Halifax.

Jill Liddington explains that the social context was shifting for Anne and her lesbian network who had managed to avoid detection because of their discretion and gentry class credentials. Victorian patriarchy was taking hold and women entrepreneurs were being frowned upon as contrary to the Victorian ideas of respectable femininity. As Liddington further suggests, nobody would dare challenge Anne Lister, a well-travelled independent businesswoman, except occasionally in times of crisis such as the 1835 Halifax election when the Tory candidate won by a very thin margin.

These moments were used by opportunists seeking to use Anne's unofficial lesbian marriage to Ann Walker as a way to potentially erode her very effective competition in coal mining. Find out more in Jill Liddington's superb selection of books on Anne Lister including 'Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority' and 'Nature's Doman' together with the smaller text 'Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax, 1791-1840. See Jill's website right for a synopsis on each of the books and links to purchase.

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Shibden Hall & Park Anne Lister Diaries Halifax West Yorkshire UK

Anne Lister of Halifax (1791-1840)

Finding out about Anne Lister at Shibden Hall Halifax

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